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Hellraiser: Deader
| starring = Doug Bradley Kari Wuhrer Paul Rhys Simon Kunz | music = Henning Lohner | cinematography = Vivi Dragan Vasile | editing = Anthony Adler | distributor = Dimension Home Video Miramax Films | released = | runtime = 89 minutes | country = United States Romania | language = English | budget = $4,000,000 (estimated) }} Hellraiser: Deader (also known as Hellraiser VII: Deader ) is a 2005 American-Romanian horror film and the seventh installment in the Hellraiser series. Directed by Rick Bota, the original script was written by Neal Marshall Stevens, who also wrote the script for the 2001 remake of Thirteen Ghosts. However - like the previous two entries in the series, Hellraiser: Inferno and Hellraiser: Hellseeker -'' it began as an unrelated spec script, which was subsequently rewritten (by Tim Day) as a ''Hellraiser film. Like Inferno, series creator Clive Barker did not have even a cursory involvement in the production of Deader. Deader was filmed on location in Romania in 2002. It saw only a handful of isolated preview screenings in the following years before finally being released straight to video in the United States on June 7, 2005. Plot Reporter Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) is sent to Bucharest at the behest of her boss, Charles (Simon Kunz), to investigate a videotape depicting the ritualistic murder - and subsequent reanimation - of a member of a cult calling themselves "the Deaders". Amy tracks down the return address of the tape and discovers the corpse of its sender, Marla, holding the Lament Configuration. She returns to her hotel and opens the box, triggering an apparent dream in which she summons Pinhead (Doug Bradley). Amy delves into Bucharest's subculture and meets Joey, who warns her about the Deaders and notices that Amy has a 'self destructive thing'. Amy pursues leads, ultimately tracking down Winter LeMarchand (Paul Rhys), the leader of the cult. Winter, as the descendant of the toymaker who designed the puzzle box, believes he is destined to access the realm of the Cenobites and become their master. Unable to open the box himself, Winter believes that only an individual exhibiting trauma-induced nihilism can open the box. To this end, he founded the Deaders and attracted emotionally vulnerable followers so that he could kill them and reanimate them. Winter does this to Amy, resulting in her experiencing an extended waking dream in which she relives her father's physical and sexual abuse and her subsequent murder of him as a child. Coming back to the living world, Amy successfully opens the box and summons the Cenobites. Pinhead expresses disdain for Winter and his family, denying that any mortal could ever control the Cenobites. He proceeds to slaughter the Deaders before indicating to Amy that she is now indebted to them by opening the box, saying that her father has been waiting for her in Hell. Rather than be taken, Amy kills herself, resulting in the box closing and sending out an electrical charge that banishes the Cenobites back to Hell and causes the Deaders' compound to explode. Later, Charles, unaware of Amy's whereabouts, assigns a new female journalist to investigate the tape. The film ends with the reporter holding up the puzzle box, which has been recovered from the destroyed compound. Cast * Kari Wuhrer as Amy Klein * Doug Bradley as Pinhead * Paul Rhys as Winter LeMarchand * Simon Kunz as Charles Richmond * Marc Warren as Joey * Georgina Rylance as Marla * Ionut Chermenski as Group Leader * Hugh Jorgin as The Arrogant Reporter * Linda Marlowe as Betty * Madalina Constantin as Anna * Ioana Abur as Katia * Constantin Barbulescu as The Landlord (as Costi Barbulescu) * Daniel Chirea as Mr. Klein * Maria Pintea as Young Amy Klein Production The film is on Neil Marshall Stevens's spec script Deader, which was submitted to Dimension Films in 2000 during the production of his script Thirteen Ghosts and had been planned to be produced by Stan Winston. As in the final film, it entailed a newspaper reporter being sent to Romania to cover an underground cult who have discovered the secret of immortality and had gained contact with an otherworldly dimension, but did not feature connections to the Hellraiser series. Although Tim Day had wanted to write a direct sequel to Hellraiser: Hellseeker featuring a final conflict between Pinhead and Kirsty, Bob Weinstein directed him to rewrite Deader into a Hellraiser sequel similar in tone to the Japanese horror films ''Ring'' and ''Pulse''. After a brief delay during the production of the 2006 American remake of Pulse, work on Deader resumed. Scott Derrickson was approached to direct but declined, and Rick Bota was rehired from the previous film. The film was originally rewritten to take place in London and later the Lower East Side of Manhattan before the producers opted to film it back-to-back with another Hellraiser sequel, titled Hellraiser: Hellworld in Romania in 2002 to save costs. Production was difficult due to the inability of the Americans in the cast and crew to understand the Romanian set workers and actors. Reception The film received a 17% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on six reviews. References External links * * Category:2005 horror films Category:2005 films Category:American films Category:American supernatural horror films Category:American direct-to-video films Category:Romanian films Category:Romanian horror films Category:Direct-to-video horror films Category:Films based on works by Clive Barker Category:Hellraiser Category:Direct-to-video interquel films Category:Films shot in Bucharest Category:2005 direct-to-video films Category:Dimension Films films Category:Film scores by Henning Lohner